We Went To Paris, I Came Into The Session, And Thomas And Guy-Man Had Already Started A Track, Which

We went to Paris, I came into the session, and Thomas and Guy-Man had already started a track, which was I Feel It Coming, which was just the music. It was one of the tracks that they were playing for me. I was free-styling over it trying to find a vibe with it. I was writing the lyrics to I Feel It Coming and then probably finished it in about an hour, went into the booth, and started recording it. Guy-Man and Thomas were kind of directing me, cause they want it to sound as authentic as possible, as retro as possible. Everything is retro— no tuning, no mellow, none of that stuff. Very raw. And while I’m recording the record, through the talkback I could hear some sort of feedback, some sort of drum loop every time Thomas is like, “Okay, next take.” So I’m like, what the fuck is that? What is that sound? So I walk in and it’s Guy-Man on his phone, or on his laptop or something, and it’s the drums of Starboy. I was like, what is that? He’s like, “Well, it’s just something on my phone.” Like, put that shit on the fucking speakers! Let me hear that! And it’s just this crazy, monstrous loop. So I put I Feel It Coming to the side. I’m like, I’m writing this. Literally wrote Starboy in 30 minutes.

The Weeknd, on working with Daft Punk (compiled from two snippets of the same interview, found here and here)